With increasing use of mobile phones, hands-free apparatuses for enabling hands-free use of (i.e., hands-free calls on) a driver's mobile phone via a vehicle-mounted microphone and speaker have become widespread.
Such a hands-free apparatus is configured, for example, as part of a vehicle-mounted navigation system equipped with a microphone and a speaker. The hands-free apparatus communicates with a mobile phone via near field communication which is compliant with a communication standard called Bluetooth® (registered trademark), outputs from the speaker a received voice input from the mobile phone, and outputs a driver's voice detected by the microphone to the mobile phone (see, e.g., Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-140731).
A device that performs communication compliant with Bluetooth® will hereinafter be referred to as a Bluetooth® device or BT device. In general, a Bluetooth® device serves as a master and searches for other Bluetooth® devices (slaves) around the master. For example, via an input unit of the master, a user typically selects a slave with which the user wants to connect to the master, from the slaves found by the search. The selected slave is registered in the master, and a personal identification number (PIN) code is shared between the slave and the master. Thus, a communication connection between the registered slave and the master is established, and communication confidentiality is ensured.
In the related art described above, first, the hands-free apparatus serving as a master searches for mobile phones which are slaves. Next, a driver who is a user selects his or her mobile phone from the mobile phones found by the search, and registers the selected mobile phone in the hands-free apparatus. This enables hands-free calls on the driver's mobile phone. Once the mobile phone is registered as described above, the hands-free apparatus can quickly start to communicate with the registered mobile phone without performing the search operation every time the power is turned on.
The hands-free apparatus typically allows registration of more than one mobile phone. When a plurality of different drivers use the same vehicle, these drivers can register their own mobile phones in the hands-free apparatus and make hands-free calls.
However, when a plurality of mobile phones are registered, the driver (user) needs to identify his or her own mobile phone, for example, from a list of registered mobile phones displayed on a display unit of the hands-free apparatus, and to input an instruction to cause the hands-free apparatus to connect to the identified mobile phone. To eliminate the need for the user to input such an instruction, a known hands-free apparatus of the related art automatically connects to the last registered mobile phone or to the previously connected mobile phone. However, a mobile phone that meets such a condition is not necessarily one the user wants to use.
In recent years, there have been a growing number of people who use a smartphone (multifunctional mobile phone) which has not only a phone function but also an Internet communication function and a function of providing various services by executing application software. A coordination system for using, for example, a navigation function of the smartphone via a vehicle-mounted display is known.
In this coordination system, the smartphone and the vehicle-mounted apparatus are connected such that they can communicate with each other via a communication bus compliant with a communication standard, such as Universal Serial Bus (USB®, registered trademark), or via a short-range wireless local area network (LAN) using a Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi®, registered trademark) certified device. This enables transmission of image data from the smartphone, and transmission of a driver's instruction input from a vehicle-mounted input unit to the smartphone for use of various services such as navigation services of the smartphone.
In this case, to use both a service provided by the smartphone via the coordination system and a phone function of the smartphone via the hands-free apparatus, the driver has to perform various setting operations, for example, every time the vehicle-mounted apparatus is powered on. Specifically, the driver has not only to operate the hands-free apparatus to select or designate the smartphone, but also to operate the smartphone to start a service, such as a navigation service.
Therefore, in a mobile electronic device coordination system for enabling use of functions of a mobile electronic device (e.g., multifunctional mobile phone) via a vehicle-mounted apparatus, it is desired to simplify a setting operation a driver needs to perform to establish communication between the mobile electronic device and the vehicle-mounted apparatus.